1. Field
One or more exemplary embodiments relate to a method and system for implementing alarms for a medical device through a mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ubiquitous healthcare (U-Health) integrates information technology (IT) with health and medical care to provide healthcare services such as prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up management of diseases. With dissemination of the U-Health concept, an increasing number of medical devices that are used inside or outside a hospital tend to be connected to one another via a network. However, a user of a medical device for providing examination and diagnosis functions is inconvenienced in having to stay near the medical device during the length of examination. Thus, an alarm function of a medical device has been implemented using a warning light or an acoustic sound so that a user may recognize completion of examination or occurrence of errors in the medical device even when being located away from the medical device. In addition, when necessary, alarm information of a medical device may be transmitted to a user's PC. However, an alarm using a warning light or acoustic sound has a limitation in a distance to which a user can perceive the alarm. Furthermore, in order to transmit alarm information to a PC, a connection for transmitting the alarm information has to be continuously maintained. This may not only cause the waste of medical device's communication resources but also hamper concentration of resources on an examination function that is a basic function of the medical device.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are schematic diagrams of conventional configurations in which a medical device 101 or 107 implements an alarm.
Referring to FIG. 1A, when a cause for an alarm occurs in the medical device 101, the medical device 101 notifies a user side 105 of occurrence of the cause for alarm through a warning light or speaker 103. According to this conventional method, a user is inconvenienced in having to stay within a range in which the user is able to see the warning light or perceive an alarm sound output from the speaker.
Referring to FIG. 1B, when a cause for an alarm occurs in the medical device 107, the medical device 107 transmits an alarm notification to an in-house server 109 that will then deliver the alarm notification to a user's PC 111 so that the user's PC 111 implement an alarm. However, in this case, since a connection for transmitting alarm information to the user's PC 111 has to be maintained continuously, communication resources of the medical device may be wasted, and resources cannot be concentrated in a main function, i.e., an examination function of the medical device 107.